Natural Child, Natural Society: RTE

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Survivors unmet needs and Irish Society's Health and Welfare of all Our Children.

A chara,

A suggestion for an article from a Survivor. Sent out to various Irish News Papers today.

Mark and David Ryan, and Maura Harmon on the Late Late Show RTE December 2022 source : RTE

Colm O Gorman speaks to the gathering at Mark Ryans Memorial in Dublin November 2022
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Three years ago, on November 6th 2022, RTE Radio aired the international award winning documentary ‘Blackrock Boys’.

It featured Mark and David Ryan, and others, speaking up about their lived experience as Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse within Irish Boarding Schools run by The Holy Ghost Fathers during the 1960s, 70s, 80s… What they recounted shocked the nation to its core.

The Blackrock Boys documentary opened a floodgate long held back by institutional inertia.

Part of this floodgate opening emerged from a small group of past pupils of Blackrock College and Willow Park who had been sharing their lived experience in private. For the first time in their lives they began to understand that there were many, many more Survivors than anyone had imagined.

Representatives of that group had been approaching The Spiritans (formerly known as The Holy Ghost Fathers) seeking an apology for failures to handle the issue appropriately.

They (now known as Restore Together) and The Spiritans held a press conference on the 16th November 2022 in which The Spiritans issued a formal public apology, indicating that a Restorative Justice pathway was being developed between them.

The Blackrock Boys documentary was followed up by Joe Duffy’s Liveline hosting a 10 day series, where multiple Survivors courageously spoke out in public. 10 days, the most difficult to hear testimony. It became clear that the issue was much larger than previously indicated, that it was about all Irish Schools and that Survivors would have a central role in how Ireland rose to meet this challenge.

Mark Vincent Healy and other Survivor advocates, including Colm O Gorman, William Gorry and many others had long called for a full public inquiry into all Irish Schools, as far back as 2000.

Survivor advocacy has been a deep, intense and active movement since the Ryan Report and Bertie Ahern’s apology and flawed indemnity offer to the Church.

Then, in the first week of December, 2022, the RTE Late Late Show aired an appearance of Mark and David Ryan with their friend Maura Harmon. The trauma, pain and courage of the Ryan brothers was evident to everyone who watched their testimony.

It was a harrowing, moving experience for everyone who viewed it, and the RTE live audience in the studio stood to give them a standing ovation lasting 5 minutes. The shared respect and grief at what was told was ultimately a humane response to the story of their lives, their lived experience.

The combination of these media events and Survivor advocacy led the then Minister for Education, Norma Foley, to initiate a Scoping Enquiry, to survey Survivors of Blackrock, Willow Park and other schools who had also come forwards.

What did they want to see done for their cause?

The Scoping Inquiry was published a year ago this week, and shocked the nation to its core. I participated as one of many survivors in this process. I felt heard and understood for the first time in my life. Others felt the same. We all knew we were the tip of the iceberg. We expressed determination rather than hope. We were and remain determined. Our cause is just. Our needs remain largely unmet.

The Scoping Inquiry recommended that the Government established a Commission of Investigation into the Handling of Child Sexual Allegations in all Irish Schools over the past 70 years. It also urged the State to make redress to all Survivors. There were many other recommendations.

Then on October 30th 2024, RTE screened the documentary ‘Leathered’ which looked at Corporeal Punishment in Irish Schools. The levels of cruelty and violence recounted by Survivors was off the scale. Everyone over the age of 40 knew this was the way it was, back then. We have all been silent on this for decades.

Joe Duffy’s Liveline followed up with two weeks of elderly people, men and women, recounting the violence and abuse they had endured, the impacts of that, the impact of the silence being broken.

Clearly the culture of physical, psychological and sexual violence perpetrated with impunity was extensive, a behavioural characteristic of Irish Schooling, irrespective of who ran those schools.

This year, the Government agreed to the Scoping Inquiry recommendation and launched the Commission of Investigation into the Handling of Historic Child Sexual Allegations in Irish Schools, and it has appointed a judge, Micheal McGrath, to lead it. It is budgeted to run for 5 years, with a review after the first two years, to assess progress and adjust accordingly.

His term in office starts in October this year.

The matter is out of the hands of the politicians, and is now in the hands of the people, via the Civil Service, Legal Advocates, Clinical Advocates and Survivors and the Schools - and the most important people in all of this are the survivors themselves, and their families and communities.

CSA when unaccounted for reverberates well beyond the individuals harmed, and when we are talking of tens of thousands of children harmed, over decades, then the matter is a societal dynamic that has to be confronted and resolved fully by the whole society.

One in Four’s Report on Attitudes towards Child Sexual Abuse in Ireland this June re-iterated this understanding that to address the issue of child sexual abuse by adults is a whole society matter. They pointed out that whilst schools today are notably safer, that cannot be said of other places where adults and children abide. The abuse of children in Ireland remains an endemic cause of harm. It should be exceedingly rare in a healthy society.

Research on previous Inquiries in Ireland, Northern Ireland, the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and South Africa has shown that repeated failures to include Survivors as ‘lived experience expertise panels’ in the deliberations at the core of those Inquiries has prevented optimal outcomes for Survivors and Society at large. Ask any of the Survivors groups of the past 30 years and they will confirm this.

The Tuam burial site and the story around it was not exceptional.

I urge everyone associated with this Commission to consider urgently now the need for a panel of ‘Lived Experience Expertise’ to be placed within the Inquiry, to inform its understanding of Survivors unmet needs, so that as the Commission of Inquiry proceeds those needs are met in full, as this will help ensure optimal outcomes for Survivors and Society at large.

As a survivor, as an innocent child my needs were not met, not once was I failed, but multiple times. As an adult my needs remained unmet because like so many others, I suffered whilst blaming myself, I suffered in silence and confusion, shame and self hatred. Even so I could imagine much, much worse. And so I coped. It was never about self pity. It is not about revenge.

To think of tens and quite possibly hundreds of thousands of others having lived through such childhood adversity at the hands of adults, as men and women coping with the impact of things that should never have been done to us, coping with the impact of things that should have been done for us but were not done, breaks my heart. Every day.

Accountability is not a blame game, it is the most effective prevention strategy of all.

We need to face this, together, with solidarity and compassion, to ensure accountability is achieved because in doing so we will make Ireland a healthier society for all alive today, and for all who will follow in our footsteps, long into the future.

There is no higher calling, in my view.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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Colm O'Gormans Eulogy for Mark Ryan, may he rest in peace, in Dublin, 27th October 2023 - open letter

David and Mark Ryan (Mark unexpectedly passed away in September 21st 2023, RIP)

This is an open letter to Irish politicians, Irish media and others regarding the matter of a Public Inquiry into the history of Sexual Abuse of Children in Irish Schools since the inception of the state, as a democratic republic. It is worth noting to readers that the first Government level report into the sexual abuse of children in Irish Schools was The Carrigan Report of 1931. Here is a 2004 article looking at this matter and the fact that this report was suppressed, for political reasons, for religious reasons and for social and economic reasons.

As regards the Government of Ireland current stance : Mark Vincent Healy is concerned that it is an ethically bankrupt process in that even as it asks Survivors to present their experience and evidence, it has not made adequate provision for the care and welfare Survivors need. The reality is the state financial, psychological and material support for previous Survivors groups, following the 6 Inquiries already done, is less than complete. It really should not be so.

I share his concern.

My letter is sent out to an email list Mark Vincent has generated as part of Survivors voicing our concerns. Mark Vincent has been active for at least 15 years in advocacy for his own case, and our cause.

I have such a deep respect for every Survivor who has ever spoken out, every Survivor that has made such efforts to have their stories told, heard and understood, in order to ensure Justice prevails.

The immensity of the task of any individual, or small group of individuals to confront the two most powerful institutions in Ireland is a Sisyphean demand. We deserve the full active support of the entire population, backing us up, all the time, until full justice is restored, and peace can abide in the land.

I would not be in the position I am today, I would not have had the access to help, the level of understanding I have of myself without the work of previous survivors and advocates, thousands of people who have done a huge amount of work on the issue of child abuse, trauma, recovery over many decades.

I truly stand on the shoulders of giants. I am so fortunate, and am well aware that so many were not so lucky as I, and that many still face insurmountable difficulties in their own personhood and their lives as a direct result of child abuse.

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Good Morning,

1. I am a Survivor, whose life has been adversely impacted by sexual assault, psychological and emotional abuse, physical abuse and neglect of my needs during 12 years spent in 5 Irish Boarding Schools, between 1965 and 1977. Thus I can speak to the culture within the entire system in that period. it was far from healthy and safe for children. All the adults knew this.

I have written you a number of times on this matter.

I attended the funeral of Mark Ryan, may he rest in peace, in London and the memorial held for him in Dublin.

I read the poem, 'We will Remember' on both occasions.

His sudden passing came as a deep shock, as he, I and others were looking forwards to continuing the task of informing a Public Inquiry, and completing the task of advocating for Justice for all survivors of depraved and extended abuse within the Boarding Schools and Day Schools of Ireland - we were innocents, whose needs as children went unmet, and today we are adults whose needs remain unmet.

The toll chronic childhood trauma takes imposes a burden that is now well understood, though not well met.

2. The Ministers eulogy was appropriately toned, and reflected the genuine compassion and kindness that Mark Ryan brought to this process.

3. Colm O' Gorman's eulogy expressed in the clearest terms the social and cultural and societal realities. Our plight and condition was known, and we were abandoned to a toxic legacy, not a matter of fate, so much as a matter of cover-ups. We were cast aside. The Church and State turned a blind eye, and lied. Irish society lied to itself.

Colm O’ Gorman eulogy at Mark Ryan’s Memorial

I invite you to reflect upon the following :

"The psychology of any given family, community or culture is both revealed and perpetuated in how they relate to and treat the most vulnerable among them. Change that and you can change everything."

I suggest that we integrate it into our thinking and action on this matter.

3. We survivors are not 'Victims', we were victimised.

That is a statement of clarity.

Every time I read the word 'victim' as a descriptive of myself I recoil in anger and revulsion. I did nothing wrong and any passivity on my part was simply a matter of the vast power disparity between me and the adults who abused me. I was not predestined to be or had any predisposition to adopt the category of victim. I was victimised.

4. I see a change in Irish Society, wrought over the past three to four decades by Survivors from various residential care settings operated by the Church with oversight and funding from the State, advocated for Justice often opposed by Church and State, and others. Systems that were commercial operations, generating wealth for the Church and it's congregations.

I do not see that change coming from within the Church. The defensive, adversarial stance of the congregations involved remains toxic.

I do not see that change coming from the State - I do not see either entity putting up their hands, admitting the fullness of the crimes committed, offering to release all documentation required to write an honest history as part of a sturdy, robust process of Justice, Accountability, Reparation let alone 'healing'.

5. I read history from the perspective of examining the lived experience of the most vulnerable with regard to how their lives are affected and indeed afflicted by the decisions of the most powerful. You might consider what that means, in terms of honesty, empathy, accuracy.

6. Recent offers of a Restorative Justice appear to be manipulative rather than genuine efforts, even as Survivors and their friends best intentions and most fervent hopes were embedded in the process. That manipulative attitude has generated divisions within Survivor groups, divisions that on reflection meet the criteria of 'divide and rule'. There is no external review of this process that can assess it fairly.

7. The work of the Scoping Inquiry team, and in particular the Survivor Engagement process which gathered testimony from hundreds of Survivors, proceeds.

While it proceeds, Survivors needs remain unmet.

Mark Vincent Healy has been explicit on this. He speaks from long experience, supporting and advocating for vulnerable survivors for over a decade.

The offer of three counselling sessions, rather than open ended support of that kind for as long as each survivor requires, is clearly inadequate.

And there is the question of economic support for Survivors.

8. The Scoping Inquiry team employed to take submissions from Survivors understand that they are taking a small sample, a point repeatedly made by Mark Vincent Healy.

9. Nonetheless, given the depth of the information and insight the interview team have been given by Survivors, they have asked for more time to assess that material - to ensure an exacting and detailed analysis be carried out, by experts in the field, to present a report to Government to accurately inform the decision making that will determine the terms of reference and task of a future Public Inquiry.

10. Most Survivors I am in touch with understand that it must be a Judicial Level Inquiry that has real power to hold the Schools and their operators to account, has the power to request documents, call witnesses before it, under perjury notice. The whole truth, nothing but the truth.

11. Mark Ryan did not get the full support he deserved. None of us have. David Ryan, his brother is not getting the full support he deserves. None of the Survivors who attended his funeral and his memorial are getting the support they need and deserve. Thousands of others today and many tens of thousands of children who were routinely abused in the most depraved manner over the last 70 years never got the support and care they deserved.

That must be corrected. We know that the ACE study and others have provided ample scientific and medical evidence that repeated trauma, multiple adverse childhood experiences, is a leading cause of early death in Survivors.

12. As one Survivor put it, speaking from within a counselling group: "We should not be friends. Our bond as Survivors is there only because we were victimised, and that should never have happened."

Eulogies for the lost can be moving and comforting, yet they are inadequate to the current needs of living Survivors - we need and indeed we deserve so much more than words.

13. We need and demand concrete action to support us, we need and demand concrete action to record the true history of what was done to us, and how the adverse impacts of that flowed through our bodies, our hearts and minds, and how it percolated through Irish Society - it did not 'happen', it was done - to so many children, for so long.

"The psychology of any given family, community or culture is both revealed and perpetuated in how they relate to and treat the most vulnerable among them. Change that and you can change everything."

Make the changes we need, and do it with robust commitment. We will continue to advocate for our case, even as we face the very real possibility of early deaths that might preclude our being there when Justice is delivered in full.

Kindest Regards

Corneilius Crowley, London.